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"I have never welcomed the weakening of family ties by politics or pressure" - Nelson Mandela."He who travels for love finds a thousand miles no longer than one" - Japanese proverb."Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence." - Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights."When people's love is divided by law, it is the law that needs to change". - David Cameron.

Friday, 26 July 2013

Home Office announces that it will appeal the recent adverse decision on family migration income threshold.

The Home Office says :http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/newsarticles/2013/july/51-min-income'However, we believe matters of public policy, including the detail of how the minimum income threshold should operate, are for the Government and Parliament to determine, not the Courts. We also believe the detailed requirements of the policy are proportionate to its aims. We are therefore pursuing an appeal against the judgment.

As many are aware, the rules were brought in initially via secondary legislation, and then (when the courts ruled against this), there was an emergency debate which a handful of Lords attended (the Commons having gone into recess), discussing something the majority of them really didn't understand (with some honourable exceptions).

This hasn't been scrutinised properly by Parliament, and the APPG goes some way to remedy this.

The rules were introduced undemocratically, without a true debate as one would understand it, and yet the Home Office blabbers hypocritically about 'the will of Parliament'.
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I was at a meeting (organised by a church group) in Westminster a couple of nights ago; on the agenda was family migration, the rules, their impact and an update on the campaign. One question was - how did the rules came in, how on earth did they get through? My explanation of the sequence of events caused a palpable ripple of shock in the room (not the only thing they found shocking; the sheer numbers of people affected - 47%at least, and maybe much more if you consider the impossibleevidential requirements - was shocking to many. That people could be asked to leave the country after 2 1/2 years was shocking too (I quote from Lord Taylor of Holbeach's letter to Baroness Smith - 'Where a couple cannot meet the financial requirement at a later application stage, for example because of redundancy, the migrant will no longer qualify... [and] will be required to leave the UK). The discriminatory nature of the rules - the impact falls on everyone, but some more than others. And on and on.

I also had to explain to a woman who approached me at the end that it may be advisable for her adult son to postpone starting a family in case he fell foul of the rules which have an additional income requirement for children. Inhuman.

The undemocratic nature of the rules does make people sit up. We come back to the point that it is important to lobby politicians because - as we've seen with family migrations - the government can be very devious about bringing in radical changes under the radar.

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In the meantime, grassroots campaigning, hearts and minds, lobbying politicians and persuading people to lobby, and providing support to those affected is key.

This should serve as a caution for those involved in other campaigns (such as legal aid, and NHS care) for how devious and ruthless this government can be.